Good/Grief Josh Koppel (Perennial/Melcher Media) The same color, size, and weight as a block of cheese, the new book by visual artist Josh Koppel might seem clever and precious at first glance, but the stories inside hold real power. Each page is like a haunting little postcard with simple phrases that move into the each […]
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THURSDAY 10/5 Oregon: Then and Now Artist and Author Reception Steve Terrill has re-photographed more than 100 of Benjamin Gifford’s historic environmental photos. Now, see the slide show! POWELL’S CITY OF BOOKS, 1005 W Burnside St, 228-4651, 7:30 pm, Free FRIDAY 10/6 Portland Writers Showcase This showcase features up-and-coming authors. Kambiz Naficy kicks off the […]
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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay By Michael Chabon Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd Thurs, Oct 12 “Cold air burned his cheeks.” This is the kind of description designed to create atmosphere but which ends up coming across like padding. Hundreds of thousands of conventional novels are filled with billions of […]
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THURSDAY 9/28 Basic Bookbinding Learn the basics of folding, gluing, and sewing yourself a book. Registration and a $5 deposit required. Space is limited. INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING RESOURCE CENTER, 917 SW Oak Street, #218, 6:30-9 pm, $10-20 Vegan Cooking: How It All Vegan OK–this re-scheduled event is really going to happen: a reading, a lot of […]
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Book Review
The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns (Virago) 1959 The Vet’s Daughter, by Barbara Comyns, is a novel with all the compression of a well constructed short story. The author has found a perfect balance between real world references and imaginative elements that allow the work to become a surreal commentary on cruelty, suffering, and salvation. […]
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THURSDAY 9/21 Tova Mirvis The Ladies Auxiliary tales a look at what happens when a sexy young woman joins a close-knit, Orthodox Jewish Community. ANNIE BLOOM’S BOOKS, 7834 SW Capitol Highway, 246-0053, 7:30 pm, Free Margaret Coel The author reads from her latest, The Spirit Woman. MURDER BY THE BOOK, 3210 SE Hawthorne, 232-9995, 6:30 […]
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Meat Won’t Pay My Light Bill
Book Review
Meat Won’t Pay My Light Bill by Kurt Eisenlohr (Future Tense) “Jack Philly and I were on our hands and knees, two men who might have once held promise, putting together a Food Club creamed corn display. We were stacking the cans of corn into an enormous pyramid, one atop the next working it toward […]
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THURSDAY 9/14 * William T Vollma See review. POWELL’S CITY OF BOOKS, 1005 W Burnside St, 228-4651, 7:30 pm, Free Sharon McCrumb The PMS Outlaws is a comedic look at love and beauty, working the idea that “insanity” is the ultimate liberation. TWENTY-THIRD AVENUE BOOKS, 1015 NW 23rd Ave, 224-6203, 7:30 pm, Free FRIDAY 9/15 […]
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Mysterious Point
A New Kind of Nancy Drew
THE BEAUTY of Tucker Malarkey’s first novel, An Obvious Enchantment, is in the authority of voice describing an exotic land. “In the evening sun, the windows of the perfumeries blazed with color, the deep light bursting inside the rows of tinted flasks and vials like jewels on an outstretched necklace. Incense and perfume had been […]
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Book Review
The Royal Family by William T. Vollmann (Viking Press) In his new novel, The Royal Family, William T. Vollmann has created a bible of the dark side, unseen in American literature since Nelson Algren’s The Man With a Golden Arm. No one since Kerouac has rendered San Francisco’s underground so vibrantly. This novel may be […]
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Lance-Con 2000
Books
Under a dirty, sagging tarp, in a back yard on Belmont, 30 some old men have gathered to look at half-naked ladies. They are vintage paperback collectors and the ladies are bikini-clad Amazons and sultry-looking nymphos on the covers. Vintage paperbacks are the small, pocket-sized books published between 1938 and 1968. The steamier ones have […]
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THURSDAY 9/7 Alan Watt “I was three when she walked out on us. Just threw everything into a bag and split, and all that was left was a photograph.” Cheap clichè and trivialized psychology, or a cleverly self-referencing postmodern look at genre work in a literary guise? You decide. Diamond Dogs is this Canadian comedienne’s […]